The Milwaukee papers are bidding fond farewell to Archbishop Timothy Dolan, as he prepares to head east and knock on the door of St. Patrick’s next Tuesday night. This article has some great anecdotes:

Stories abound of Dolan’s personal outreach, his ability to connect with others – Catholic or not – whether at a fish fry or a hospital room.

Russel Parr recalls holding his then 3-year-old daughter, Molly, during Mass at St. Jerome’s Parish in Oconomowoc a few years ago. Dolan was concelebrating the Mass.

Molly was usually pretty good in church, Parr said, but this time she was being unusually silly, squirming and making faces. Her parents looked up to find the archbishop playing peek-a-boo with her from the altar.

“I thought, ‘I’ll be darned, he’s getting a 3-year-old in trouble,’?” Parr said. “Everything we’d heard about him came together right there. He’s just so easygoing, so personable.”

Sue Nieberle felt the same way after meeting Dolan at Holy Apostles Catholic School in New Berlin shortly after his arrival in 2002.

A stay-at-home mother of four with a newborn, Nieberle was exhausted. She asked Dolan to give her 4-month-old son Noah, whom she was holding in her arms, a “sleep-through-the-night” blessing.

“He said, ‘Wow, let me know if it works. We can do some fund raising with this idea!’?”

Nieberle is disappointed to see Dolan leave for New York.

“He’s just so approachable, so visible in the community,” she said.

Dolan knows that is his strength. An admirer of the late John Paul II, who was revered for his pastoral presence, he is most at home mingling with the flock.

“I don’t have many people who are going to come up to say, ‘I remember the sermon you gave’ or ‘We were at that committee meeting with you,’?” Dolan said in a recent interview. “What they will say is ‘Remember my little girl – you visited her in the hospital?’ or ‘You were at Grandpa’s wake.’?”

“It’s one person at a time,” Dolan said, quoting the late Mother Teresa. “That’s where you’re going to win souls. That’s what it’s all about.”

Many recalled Dolan’s personal touches, how accessible he was to those in need.

Patrick Kobelinski was 27 and newly married when he died of colon cancer in April 2004. During a visit to his hospital room, the archbishop had offered a blessing and given his phone number and e-mail address.

“It meant the world to us,” said Kobelinski’s mother, Marnie Kobelinski of Pewaukee, her voice breaking.

“It’s a memory we’ll have forever, of something beautiful during such a difficult time.”

Rabbi Isaac Nathan Lerer was already unconscious when Dolan, his friend, arrived at his bedside in late February. The archbishop removed his purple zucchetto and lay it next to the rabbi’s kippah, said daughter Chavee Lerer.

“He said, ‘Look, Isaac, I have a hat just like yours,’?” she said.

Dolan took her father’s hand and prayed for him, then asked for his prayers when he was with the Lord.

There’s more at the link.

PHOTO: by Benny Sieu